


we don't bleed when we don't fight

by jaekyu



Series: loving you's a bloodsport [1]
Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Asphyxiation, Blood Kink, Hate Sex, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor Violence, Recreational Drug Use, not really but kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 00:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7552294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a regular rivalry: Mark plays the drums and Jaebum plays the guitar and they hate each other, except for that they don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we don't bleed when we don't fight

**Author's Note:**

> i am a firm believer that a writer who never experiments never gets any better. the style of this fic is, what i would call, a light experiment. it might be a little pretentious, but that's cool. 
> 
> i'm in the process of writing a longer, more taxing fic for a different fandom rn. i wanted to put something out before that, though: so here's this. a got7 hyungline punk band au.
> 
>  **EDIT:** parts of this series and some lyrics have been directly lifted from brand new songs. please see series notes for more information on that and feel free to skip this fic if that hurts you in anyway.

you're all I see, sink into me.  
sharpen your teeth, sink into me.  
(TAKING BACK SUNDAY)

 

if you wanna start a fight,  
you better throw the first punch  
make it a good one  
(PANIC! AT THE DISCO)

 

 

 

 

 

**1.**

Mark punches Jaebum in the mouth.

Every one of the bones of Mark’s hand pulled into a tight fist and smashed against the curve of Jaebum’s jaw. The weight and force of it makes Jaebum groan and spit blood onto the sidewalk. There’s a scratch on one of Mark’s knuckles from where it nicked one of Jaebum’s teeth.

It is a quiet night, save for the sound of blood going _drip, drip, drip_. The moon hangs low and fat above them. The splatter of Jaebum’s blood on the sidewalk looks like a macabre Rorschach, a sinister ink blot.

Take a look at it, what do you see? How does that make you feel?

(Angry and sad and _angry_ ).

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve given you a scene without a stage set for it, we’ve shown you our hand of cards without you having looked at your own. Is this good, is it bad? You have no frame of reference for what you're seeing here.

Yes, they’ve got a shared history. That much you must have already guessed. And now you’re asking, what’s this shared history? And we’re telling you don’t worry, we’ll get to it. Then maybe none of us will be doomed to repeat it.

We’re telling you, by the end of this maybe you’ll think he deserved it.

 

 

**2.**

The thing about anger is that it’s hardly ever just one emotion. You are sad and you are scared and you are hurt and you take all those base feelings and you melt them down and the chemistry leaves you with anger.

It’s easier to be angry.

When he was fifteen Jaebum’s parents sat him down and said, “it’s not working out for us,” like it wasn’t obvious to Jaebum already. Like it didn’t bleed into how his dad stopped sitting at the table for dinner or how his mom would lock the bathroom door and turn on the shower and think no one was hearing her cry. Like Jaebum was stupid, or something, and couldn’t see the giant crack in the foundation of his family.

When he was fifteen Jaebum’s mother put her hand on his knee and said, “don’t worry, nothing’s going to change for you,” and lied through her teeth.

Jaebum’s been angry ever since.

 

 

**3.**

Jaebum’s father puts him in guitar lessons when he’s sixteen. For something constructive to do, to keep him out of trouble, to keep him from slamming the door in his father’s face after they fight for an hour in the kitchen about how Jaebum needs to respect him.

It doesn’t exactly work like that. Jaebum starts listening to Black Flag and Bad Brains and Fugazi and stops trying to play the guitar properly and learns to work with what he has. Quits his lessons, molds what he knows now with the help of some old Sex Pistols and Germs albums to play messy and raw and loud.

It doesn’t make him less angry, just redirects it. Because that’s punk music, it’s about still being angry and just being loud enough for everyone to hear it. Jaebum still slams the door shut but now he slams it and plays random assortment of chords over his dad’s voice until his fingers go raw and his elbows ache.

It’s makes him feel more alive: being in pain and being so loud about it.

 

 

**4.**

Mark and Jaebum come from two different schools of punk music and that’s grounds enough to start a rift between them from the very beginning.

Mark likes all that easy to swallow punk shit, Jaebum would say. The kind that doesn’t burn it’s way down your throat and tears apart your insides. Jaebum is messy and he is angry and he’s all about substance over quality and in many ways Mark is the opposite.

And maybe that’s because Jaebum picked up guitar because he was angry and Mark played the drums because he was bored. Maybe it’s because Jaebum is mostly self-taught and lacking technique and Mark’s been taking drums since he was five years old. Maybe it’s because Jaebum wanted to be loud and Mark wanted to be heard.

In the end it doesn’t matter because Mark is the best drummer Jaebum’s ever heard and if he’d be an idiot to not let him play in the band.

 

 

**5.**

The band is not Jaebum’s idea. It’s Jackson’s.

“Listen,” Jackson says, “I know this dude, he plays bass pretty good. And obviously we’ll put you on vocals and let you write a bunch of angry songs about how you hate your dad and play rhythm and I’ll play lead and we will make the best post-hardcore shit you love this side of planet earth,”

The dude who plays bass pretty good is Jinyoung, who looks and dresses and acts like he’d be the last guy in the universe to want to play in a punk band. There’s something below the surface with Jinyoung, though, something he’s buried deeper than anyone can reach in and pull out, except it bleeds through him when he plays music.

They get a month into them being A Band before they realize.

“Fuck,” Jackson scrubs a hand over his face, “we totally need a drummer, dude,”

Jinyoung says, “I know a guy,” and this time the guy is Mark, who looks like he loves all that watered down shit Jaebum discredits with a wave of his hand and a roll of his eyes. He plays the shit out of his drums, though, and it’s not like they have much of a choice.

Just like they’re a quartet, an unlikely group of guys trying to play music for every misunderstood and angry kid out there who are just like them. They get a van and they haul their own instruments and they play for dirt cheap.

 

 

**6.**

“If you take the AUX and force me to listen to a single Blink-182 song, Mark, I swear to god,” Jaebum says, sliding into the van’s driver seat and buckling his seatbelt, “I’ll crash this car before we make it to the venue.”

“We’ll go out like the greats: before our time,” Jackson says from the backseat, smooshed between Mark’s snare and his kick-drum. “Jim Morrison, Buddy Holly, Kurt Cobain.”

Jinyoung, from the other side of the kick-drum while cradling his bass, says, “we’re not famous enough for anyone to give a shit.”

“Shouldn’t you be resting your voice for all that screaming into the mic you’re going to be doing, later?” Mark counters to Jaebum, specifically, quirk of his eyebrow and plugging his phone into the AUX anyway. He doesn’t play Blink-182.

“Can we have one gig where you two don’t end up at each other’s throat?” Jackson interjects.

Jinyoung shakes his head, “it’s basically a pre-show ritual at this point. We’d play like shit if they didn’t do this.”

“When we get big enough to play venues with dressing rooms we’re going to have put that on the list of shit we need. One, three boxes of a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and no less,”

Jinyoung starts counting on his fingers. He lifts a second when he says, “two, beef jerky. Lots of it.”

“Three!” Jackson continues, “a reason for Mark and Jaebum to fight.”

Mark balls up a McDonalds wrapper he finds in the centre console and throws it at them.

 

 

**7. ******

The first time Mark and Jaebum fuck they’re wasted off their asses.

They always get wasted after shows. If they play bars they usually get free drinks and if they aren’t playing a bar someone usually has a bottle of something laying around and they pass it between them and talk about how shitty their band is.

“Is this the only way you can tolerate me?” Mark asks, referring to just how far Jaebum is from sober.

They’re in the alley outside the bar they just played. Jaebum was so drunk he felt like he had to throw up so he kissed Mark instead. He has Mark pushed against a brick wall, now, and Mark’s wearing just a tank top. The brick is against his bare skin and Jaebum hopes it hurts. He bites into the curve of Mark’s shoulder and he hopes that hurts, too.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jaebum says.

Mark ignores him. “Fuck _me_ ,” he says instead.

They fuck in the back of the van, their instruments still on stage waiting to be packed up. Jaebum pushes Mark’s face against the floor and pushes into him and starts and keeps up a brutal pace as he fucks into Mark. And Mark just keeps asking for more, more, more and harder, harder, harder. It’s fucking annoying. Jaebum sticks three of his fingers into Mark’s mouth.

When Mark comes, his voice is muffled around them.

****

****

******8.** ** **

“I fucked Mark,” Jaebum says to Jinyoung.

Jinyoung hums, “of course you did.”

It sounds condescending. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“I heard what you said, Jaebum,” Jinyoung replies, “what do you want me to say? Should I be surprised? Because I’m not. I don’t think you and Mark are either.”

Jaebum hates that. That he gave into predictability, that he let his decisions be influenced by what seemed like the next obvious step. You’ll do all kinds of shit if you think it makes sense in this certain character arc of your life.

 

****

******9.** ** **

Jaebum and Mark don’t just not get along because of their taste in music. That would be fucking stupid. Jaebum’s also always been a firm believer in that punk is an accepting movement and that differences don’t mean shit.

It’s more about what that distance in music taste means. Really, it doesn’t mean anything. All it does is suggest thingd. Suggests Mark grew up better, Mark’s parents loved each other and Mark got what he wanted because his parents could afford to give it to him.

Mark got all this shit and all Jaebum got was a broken home, a broken family, broken fingers from where he punched a wall, broken speakers from playing his guitar too loud. Mark and Jaebum play two different instruments and they each have their own kind of calluses from it.

Jaebum’s not self-reflective enough to realize all of this, though. All he realizes is he sees something disingenuous in Mark about the music that saved his life and that, like so many other things, makes Jaebum angry.

 

****

******10.** ** **

Jaebum kisses Mark like he wants to rip him open and see what Mark hides under all the ska punk and the tank tops and the sinewy muscles he’s developed from playing drums. Jaebum kisses Mark like he wants to taste his blood and see what it’s made of.

“Where’d you get that split lip,” Jackson says, pushing his finger against Mark’s bottom lip. Mark hisses and swats Jackson’s hand away, gives him the finger.

They practice for three hours, until Mark’s dripping sweat and Jaebum’s throat is raw. The scab on Mark’s lip is gone, Jaebum notices. He must have bit it off. A bit of blood drips onto Mark’s chin.

Jaebum resists the urge to cross the space between them and smear it across Mark’s pale skin with his thumb.

****

****

******11.** ** **

A venue cancels a gig on them, so they get high in Jinyoung’s basement while his parents are still on vacation and bitch about it.

“That gig was going to pay for a new amp,” Jackson complains. He has his head in Jinyoung’s lap. Jinyoung plays with his hair, scratching his nails against Jackson’s scalp. “The one I have right now is all distorted, sounds like shit,”

“That makes us more punk,” Mark replies. He’s sitting in an antique rocking chair that Jinyoung’s mom must have got from his grandfather. It’s ugly as sin and it creaks loud. “At least, Jaebum’s DIY scene obsessed vision of punk.”

“Go fuck yourself,” from his spot on the floor Jaebum kicks Mark in the shin.

“Kiss your mother with that mouth?” Mark smirks.

“No, but I kiss yours with it.”

****

****

******12.** ** **

Mark makes a hole through his kick-drum one night during practice and they all end up having to pool money together to buy it a new skin.

“I don’t know why your parents can’t just buy you a whole new kick-drum,” Jaebum snarls, more venomously then maybe he meant, as he shoves a wad of bills into Mark’s hand.

“I don’t like asking them for money,” Mark spits back at him, “especially when I’m supposed to be making money playing in your shitty fucking band.”

“If it’s shitty why don’t you quit?” Jaebum challenges. Mark’s eyes flash hurt in them, for just a moment. But they recover quickly and Mark looks at Jaebum with resilient anger. Jaebum keeps talking regardless of Mark's anger, or maybe it's because of, “then we could just find a new drummer and not pay to re-skin your drum.”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Mark has never sounded this angry before. Not when they get gigs cancelled hours before, not when someone cuts him off in traffic, not even when he’s constantly arguing with Jaebum. “Maybe I will quit, it’s not like you’d fucking miss me.”

“Leave and find out,” Jaebum immediately regrets saying it. Before he can take it back the door to Jackson’s garage closes behind Mark.

****

****

******13.** ** **

They’re listening to Jinyoung’s David Bowie records around midnight and drinking lukewarm canned beer when Jackson says, “you better go talk to him tomorrow.”

“What?” Jaebum asks. The sharp edge of the opening on the can catches his inner top lip. It hurts.

“Mark,” Jackson narrows his eyes, “tomorrow, when you’re sober, you had better go talk to him. This band is at least fifty percent shittier without him in it. You think we’re going to be able to find a better drummer who would put up with you?”

“Mark doesn’t put up with me,” Jaebum tastes his own blood in his mouth. He runs his tongue over the small cut. He takes a sip of beer and it starts to taste like blood too.

“Fuck off, you know he does,”

****

****

******14.** ** **

They fuck again. Jaebum doesn’t think the excuse of his brain tricking him will work this time.

“You make me so fucking angry sometimes,” Jaebum breathes out against Mark’s jaw. They’re in Mark’s house, his parents house, in Mark’s bed. His sheets are grey. He has posters of Green Day and Coheed and Cambria up on his wall.

It’s midday so the house is empty, all of Mark’s family off with better things to do. Warm sunlight streams through the window and Mark’s whining because Jaebum’s dick is in him and just hitting that right spot.

Jaebum leans up from biting at Mark’s neck to look at him. Mark looks wrecked, every part of him flushed pink and his hair a mess. Mark opens his eyes, catches Jaebum looking. Jaebum pulls nearly all the way out of Mark and thrusts back in as fast as he can as payback for the smirk Mark gives him.

Mark circles a hand around Jaebum’s wrist. “Show me how angry I make you,” and then Mark takes Jaebum’s hand and puts it around his throat.

Jaebum is taken aback for a moment, before he squeezes Mark’s throat experimentally. The skin is soft and it’s warm and the skin around the perimeter of Jaebum’s hand goes white when he applies pressure. Mark moans, too, and his cock twitches against Jaebum’s stomach.

He fucks Mark hard, unrelenting and without care with a hand around his throat. Mark comes without Jaebum even needing to wrap a hand around the other’s dick.

Jaebum follows him soon after, rolls off of Mark and ties off the condom, dropping it unceremoniously into the trash by Mark’s bedside.

“You make me so angry sometimes,” Jaebum repeats, breathless.

****

****

******15. ******** **

Remember, earlier, when we told you: anger is hardly ever just one emotion.

Do you remember that? Remember that.

******** ** **

******** ** **

**********16.** ** ** ** **

“Do you hate me?” Mark asks. His throat is bruising.

“Yes,” Jaebum says. He’s lying. He thinks Mark knows he’s lying.

“You don’t fuck me like you hate me,” Mark replies.

Then, later, Mark says, “fuck me like you hate me.”

By the time Jaebum leaves the moon has replaced the sun’s spot in the sky and Mark’s a member of the band again.

******** ** **

******** ** **

**********17.** ** ** ** **

They say success requires blood, sweat and tears.

If they provide one thing, at least, Mark and Jaebum provide the blood.

Blood from every split lip Jaebum has tore into Mark. From every line of scratches Mark has left across Jaebum’s arms. Jaebum looks at Mark and the way his features curve into each other and the way he carries himself and the way he looks and talks to Jaebum and Jaebum thinks the nastiest shit sometimes.

 _I want to kiss you until you start to bleed,_ Jaebum thinks _._

___I want to sink my teeth into your collarbone until I break off a tooth and leave it inside you forever _.__ _ _

_____I want to roll you over and fuck you until you puke _.__ _ _ _ _

Jaebum thinks all these things, looks at Mark, and realizes Mark might let him.

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

**18.**

We’ve covered most of it now. You’ve seen the good, the bad.

Now it’s time for the ugly.

(Anger is hardly ever one emotion. Remember that.)

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

**19.**

Mark kisses Jaebum before a gig. They’re right fucking back stage, all the lights off and a small crowd gathered at the stage. They’ve smoked a bowl and ate beef jerky and Mark and Jaebum have fought, so they're as ready as they’ll ever be.

And then - right before they’re about to go on - Jaebum takes one step out onto the stage behind Jinyoung and Jackson and suddenly Mark’s grabbing him by the shirt collar. Grabbing him by the shirt collar with his drumsticks into Jaebum’s upper arm and kisses him.

Jaebum doesn’t register what’s happening before he’s automatically sinking his teeth deep into Mark’s bottom lip and by then Mark is pulling away, darting to his spot at the back of the stage.

They get three songs into a five song gig before Jaebum calls it. He doesn’t know why, he’s just so fucking angry. He’s too angry to play, which is weird. He’s too angry to play when all he used to do when he was angry was play.

Jaebum says, “this is fucking stupid,” into the mic and drops his guitar on stage and walks right off and out the bar’s back door.

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

**20** **.**

  
“What the fuck was that,” Mark says, following Jaebum out the back door not minutes later. “They’re not going to pay us for this gig anymore, you fucking idiot. You better hope people want to buy any of our merch after the shit you just pulled.”

“Can you leave me alone?” Jaebum grits through his teeth.

“No,” Mark crosses his arms in front of his chest, “after the shit you just pulled? Fuck no. I know you’re into that I don’t give a fuck anarchy bullshit but you're in a band with three other dudes. Just because you like to pretend your the front man doesn’t mean anything.”

“Are you done?”

“Shut up,” The wind blows around them. Mark’s missing the usual sweat on his skin he normally gets after gigs. They only played three songs, though, so that makes sense. “Is this because I kissed you?”

“Don’t,” Jaebum’s hand curls into a fist.

“You’re gonna fucking punch me?” Mark challenges, noticing the flex of Jaebum’s arm and hand. “Go ahead. Right in my mouth, that’ll shut me up, right? Everyone’s been waiting for us to beat each other up since we met, haven’t they?”

“I don’t want to punch you,”

“Bullshit,” Mark moves closer, “I make you angry, don’t I? Do I make you angry because you’re trying to bury the fact that you _care_ about me?”

“I don’t -” _care_ , Jaebum starts to say but he can’t. He can’t say it because Mark’s punched, right in the jaw and hard. Jaebum’s mouth tastes like metal and he realizes it’s because it’s filling with his blood. He spits it onto the sidewalk.

“Don’t lie to me,” Mark is breathing hard, “look deep inside that pissed off little heart of yours and figure your shit out, Jaebum, and realize you feel things besides anger or stop fucking me. Whichever works.”

 

********______ _ _ _ _ ** ** ** **

**21**.

If this was a better story it would end like this: Jaebum figures his shit out, realizes he’s afraid to care about people because the only people he knows in his who cared about each other really never did. He’ll tell Mark and Mark will tell him he understands, maybe they’ll work it out from there.

This is not a better story. It ends like this: Jaebum punches Mark in the gut, sends him reeling back against the brick wall of the alley. Isn’t that so familiar, pressing Mark into a brick wall. Jaebum fucks him against it this, hand against Mark’s throat. Fitted against the fading bruises last time, threat of being caught an open door and a dark walk down an alley away. Jaebum is still bleeding from the punch and he makes Mark bleed by biting his lip and isn’t that so familiar too.

Weren’t they always so good at providing the blood?

 

 

 **22**. 

This isn't a better story so nothing much changes. They fuck and they fight and the bleed for each other. They hate each other, except for when they don't. 

**Author's Note:**

> the roll over and fuck you till you puke line is not my own, by the way, it's from a richard siken poem called wishbone.


End file.
